The instrumentals falter. [Jun 2004, p.97]

An organic burst of music and melody that is Matranga's best work yet. [Apr 2004, p.84]

An appreciation for the heart, humor and no-bullshit directness of the very best hip hop is all that's required. [May 2004, p.108]

Excellent. [Jun 2004, p.111]

A great album, crammed with hooks and harmonies, goofball lyrics and the left-of-center melodic twists any indie-rawk geek would fly or die for. [Jul 2004, p.148]

So authentic, you'll think songs like "Bad Dream Mama" were put to tape 25 years ago. [Jun 2004, p.108]

Beam may continue lacing his ragged acoustic with your heartstrings while quietly whispering about a growing understanding of self, but he isn't sitting beneath a pink moon quite yet. That's surely on its way. [May 2004, p.94]

There's not much left for the Vines' frontman other than his music, which on Winning Days seems more like an afterthought--if not the work of an unbearably bad Oasis record. [Apr 2004, p.98]

All invention and no indulgence. [Jun 2004, p.110]

Gen-Y stoners who'd trade their favorite bong to inhale a hip-hop Pink Floyd, the exchange line starts here. [May 2004, p.108]

The unpredictable edge that's helped made the series a standout is gone. [May 2004, p.108]

Aveo's songwriting isn't as intriguing as their sound. [May 2004, p.94]

What used to feel timeless now just feels tired. [Jun 2004, p.107]

A barrage of unfocused fragments that prove this album should have been condensed into a seven-song EP. [May 2004, p.96]

There's enough patented 'Pusher weirdness here to tingle your noggin. [Apr 2004, p.100]

Closely approximates what Tears For Fears' The Hurting would have sounded like if Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith had grown up in Georgia. [Apr 2004, p.84]

At times monotonous, Heart's strongest tracks are those augmented with vocals by female guitarist Marcie Bolen and basist Carrie Smith. [Apr 2004, p.96]

Unfortunately, many of the tunes wear out their welcome, overextending a single inspired idea. [Apr 2004, p.88]

His arrangements are floral and handcrafted and warm. [May 2004, p.102]

The first great rock album of 2004. [May 2004, p.102]

Easy like a Sunday morning, and just as dull. [May 2004, p.110]

Their most complete-sounding disc to date. [Mar 2004, p.91]

Loose continually festers with a blistering intensity and creativity that's not for the closed-minded or faint of heart. [Feb 2004, p.88]

Channels the spirits of no wave via clinks and clanks, doomy vocal chants, ominous tribal thumps, abstract guitar scraping and jarring haunted-forrest samples. [Mar 2004, p.110]

They've beefed up their bombastic prog-rock guitars and grandiose, Teutonic synth motifs to new levels of virtuoso excess. [Feb 2004, p.93]

Moves from intense free jazz to gamelan to Boredoms-like (Ger)manic trance rock to fusionoid Tortoise-style meanderings-as played by psilocybin-gobbling aliens. [Feb 2004, p.93]

A batch of lazy mid-afternoon pop songs that only sound better when his friends from Wilco show up to sing along. [Apr 2004, p.86]

Xiu Xiu nail their nebulous mix of new wave and post-punk gloom, but also lace their tunes with uncompromising experimentation and emotion. [Apr 2004, p.88]